"Technologies can make things work faster, make the impossible possible, but they don’t create humanity." Veronica Millan, MullenLowe

MullenLowe Global

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London, Reino Unido

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Veronica Millan

Global CIO — MullenLowe Group

In a rapidly evolving world, innovation is essential. Chief Information Officer at MullenLowe, Veronica Millan, speaks on their philosophy of exploration, accessibility, and technology expanding the boundaries of what is possible.

Does your agency encourage or deter the use of AI in your work? If applicable, how does your team integrate these tools into the creative process?

At MullenLowe, we have been using generative artificial intelligence (which is the likes of ChatGPT and MidJourney and Dall-E2 and others), but we’ve also been using artificial intelligence in the broader sense of the definition – we use automation, data analytics, and machine learning, gaming and metaverse engines, blockchain and that ecosystem, along with all the AI that has been inherently built into the products and tools that we buy from others (Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, and others).

Our philosophy has been to explore and play with any of these technologies when they first appear because they will either become technologies that we can use to make more interesting work for our clients, or our clients will see how these technologies change the relationship they build with their customers. The best day I have is the day that a Creative team reaches out and wants to try something new with an emerging technology. Even if the experiment doesn’t work exactly as we think it will or the tech is really not ready yet, we’ve at least played with it and stretched the boundaries of what was possible.

Today, our teams are using generative AI to play around with copy – the tool will come up with some versions of what we may want to use and then it goes back to the human team to decide if that’s the right feel or sound or if we need to try again. For images, we’re using generative AI to learn from our existing content to see if we can come up with new ideas quickly – even if we discard them later, we can at least test out an idea quickly.

How does the accessibility of these tools affect the way it is used?

The dark side of this generative AI craze is that it’s primarily catered towards English speakers – which yes, there are millions, but equally so, we’re losing something when the primary language is English. I speak three languages fluently and can get away with about 3 more, and I am highly conscious how there are words that cannot be directly translated from one language to another. And since language and images can be impressions of feelings and have a cultural context, we are losing something when these tools can’t perform equally well in other languages.

For accessing these tools – if people are sneaking around using technology that isn’t sanctioned, you’re going to end up either with security problems (as people use tech and upload information or data that they shouldn’t into these engines) or with people who are less likely to consider new projects or ideas for their clients because they have limited access to these tools. Either scenario is terrible! Yes, we need guidelines, and we need to make sure we’re not working with “fly-by-night” operators, but we do need to promote the use of new tech in every agency.

As AI advances, how is the role of the creative redefined? In what ways do you see the landscape of creation changing/shifting in response to AI?

I’m not in the camp that the world is ending, and every job is going to be taken over by robots or AI. As a technologist, generative AI is still clearly a tool – a useful tool, but it’s still a tool. Where I see generative AI actually making a significant difference to the creative process is how quickly we can ideate and test an idea or how realistic we can create an idea before committing to the production process. The ability to generate ideas quickly will help us get through the bad ideas faster. We can then focus on refining the good ideas and improving those. We can also find the opportunity to mockup something more realistic with a lower cost, so even if the client isn’t sold on the idea, we haven’t invested too much into the production of it.

If AI furthers its capability to create and think, what is a responsible way to use these new technologies?

The human being must be in the center of developing these capabilities. As companies create these new technologies or advance the existing one, we need to remember that these technologies are still interacting with humans. We need to remember that we are still working with humans at the end of the day. Technologies can make things work faster, make the impossible possible, but they don’t create humanity.

As a side note, we also have to shift our educational systems – we have to bring in more ethics and more critical thinking. We are starting to see huge gaps and if we are going to live in world with AI doing more of the “thinking” in our world, then we need to be able to understand what it does and to verify it’s doing the right thing for our society.